Lena and the Hedgehog

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Sunday, 20 September 2015

On Friday I got happy post. The best happy post I could have imagined. Getting fabrics in the post is always exciting for me anyway. I love the crisp feel of new fabrics. They are so beuatiful and bright and simply happy. This time I got a whole lot of fabrics from a German fabric shop called Sonntagshase. You can find them on Facebook here and their online shop here. The shop is owned by the lovely Doreen, who is always very nice and helpful.

When I opened the box, I was greeted by tissue paper. To me it make sit more exciting as it is like opening presents :)

In the box were also lots of surprises. I literally squealed and kept finding more and more. This really was like Christmas come early.

There were German biscuits...

A ribbon that says lots of different things on it and can be cut up to be used as sew in tags...

A tiny box of tiny pins...

A beautiful card and a horse iron on thingy....how do you call these in English anyway?

Some coffee sweets, which I will have to either keep until the baby is here or give to my husband ;)....

But then there were the fabrics. Of course I knew which ones I ordered, but fabrics are always nicer in reality than on the computer screen.

These are beautiful pink jerseys. One is for a custom order next month, the others are for upcoming projects.

There will be new items joining my little range. For starters it will be clothes based but later on hopefully also some new toys. But for now I am very excited about the new clothes. All these fabrics are super comfy and soft jersey. Perfect for little ones, especially babies ;)

As I don't know yet, what I am having, I thought I would also stock up on some boys fabrics. usually I make dresses and they really are not suitable for boys haha. Although I have a little tomboy, who loved her dresses but also loves lots of boys things. She already has claimed the dragons, the cats with the fish and the cats on the clouds lol.

And at the bottom of the box were even some free patterns :)

So beautiful happy post indeed. I am looking forward to getting stuck into these fabrics.

Friday, 18 September 2015

I have been thinking about this type of post all morning and I think I would like to try to turn it into something more regular. In these posts I will tell you things about me and my life abroad.

Living in a foreign country is sometimes very lonely. I have left my entire family behind in Germany. On top of that I have always found it extremely difficult to make friends. After 14 years in Ireland I have come to the conclusion that this has several reasons. One: I am very different as I grew up in a different culture. I have often different views and I am possibly more outspoken. Germans tend to speak their mind more and often I have offended people when I did not mean to. Two: the local people here have either got siblings or lots of friends form their school time. Or even both. They are not in need of new friends. Unlike me. Because without friends, life is dull and lonely. So when a person takes their time to get to know me and maybe considers me as a friend, it is usually very special to me. To date I have only found four people who managed to remain my friends over the years. And three of them are foreign like myself. They know who they are, so I don't need to mention names :) I am grateful for those two people in my life, whom I can tell things. I love to meet up with my friends as well and usually it is a great deal for me. All four have their own busy life with children and a husband and meeting up is not always easy. I live in the country, which in Ireland means you have literally almost no neighbours. I don't live in a village but right bang in the country. I also have a husband who is super busy. He is a farmer and works inhumane hours. So again that adds to me being alone a lot.

So, I am grateful for the friends I have. Thank you for being in my life...

Tuesday, 15 September 2015

For a while now I have been thinking of going back into blogging. I can't believe it has been almost two years since my last post..oops. Mia then just turned three and now, in only a matter of weeks, she will be already a big five!

Lots has changed since. We are now expecting our third addition to our little family ;), which in Germany would now be classed as a big family. This is all very exciting but it also is taking a lot out of me. Pregnancy certainly does not get easier the older you get. I also am one of those women, who is sick a couple of times a week right until the end of the pregnancy. This happened with Lucy and Mia and it seems to be the case this time round as well. It makes me tired and admittedly grumpy. Plus looking after two children, who have a very demanding week with school and several after school activities, it is a lot harder than when I was pregnant with Mia and only had a small two year old Lucy to look after. On top of all that I suffer from a constant pain in my back. It's a muscle that wraps around the side of your back to your rips and it is literally constantly sore unless I lie in bed. But enough of the moaning! I am also very excited and happy and feel eternally blessed to be bale to have another baby. Children are a blessing and with so many women being unable to have children, I think we are super lucky.

Another thing that has happened is that Mia has just started school. Way too early in my opinion. In Germany you don't start school until you are six. Even the second time it feels strange for me to let her go into such a long school day. Though in a way I am enjoying the fact that i have more time to myself, which allows me to rest more and once the baby is here it will give me more quiet time with the baby. But Mia is a very innocent young child. In her mind she is still like a baby sometimes. Don't get me wrong, she is super smart (I know, I am bias) and capable of going away for that length of time. She is really enjoying it so far, so that is great. I guess it is the Mummy in me who wants to keep her close and not let her grow up. She is still my baby right now. But does that ever change? Probably not :)

Anyway, I will try to blog more again and this will be more like a behind the scene of Lena and the Hedgehog. More personal life and what is happening behind the scenes when I get to sew.

Monday, 18 November 2013

WARNING: this post is very picture heavy. But hopefully all the prettiness will be worth it :)

On Saturday, the 16th November was Mia's birthday. She is my youngest, so my baby. I always feel the change from 2 to 3 is a very big step. They change from baby to child and from their 3rd birthday on, everything changes. So I wanted something very special to mark this great occasion. And Mia is a very happy and cheeky child, who makes me laugh a lot. Therefore rainbows were the perfect theme. I also have seen so many beautiful blogs with posts about rainbow parties. Such eye candy!

Enter the party through the balloon rainbow!

This wooden ring with candles is a tradition in our house. Every birthday, it comes out ad gets lit in the morning when the girls are coming down to open their presents. I love it as it reminds me of Germany and the traditions I grew up with.

My lovely friend Julie from Mademoiselle Poupette made the beautiful rainbow bunting for me. I literally decided two weeks before the party on the theme, so was pressed for time. As I am working like crazy on my own christmas orders, she was so kind to make me one. I also have now clue how to make bunting. Dolls are no problem, but bunting? Scary lol

I took the rainbow theme very serious ;)

Rainbow cups.

Rainbow Skittles and Smarties...ok, at this point a friend of mine said that it is borderline OCD...lol I love to be organised haha.

Rainbow napkins

Rainbow party bags with handmade stickers.

I made these Cake Pops that very delicious. Covered in white chocolate (my favourite) and covered with colourful sprinkles. Perfect!

The cake! I have seen a similar cake online ages ago and saved the image but can no longer find the link.

Everything was rainbows :) But it was so lovely and bright and happy!

And here is the birthday girl in her dress made by me :)

And on her tippy toes, eyeing up the jelly Beans.

Sisters: Lucy and Mia together in their Mummy made dresses :)

Blowing the candles.

And here is the very impressive inside of the cake. I was not very happy with the outcome of the outside as it looks like a child had wrapped play doh around it and in my perfectionist mind that was just not good enough. But the inside had the very desired wow effect. And it tasted scrummy, too!

Some playtime with the new toy and friends :)

And then it was Pinata time! And all the children had lots of fun and there were no fights over the sweets, which was great.

Lucy with her treasures :)

Mis is enjoying a Cake Pop

And the children all found a way to get the sweets haha. But best was that they all took the cups of the table, put the sweets in and had a picnic under the table lol. the result was that the amount of sweets eaten was not monitored anymore and they all ended up veeery hyper. We had to remove all sweets in the end.

So, that was our rainbow party. It was so much fun to organise and see it coming together. but the best was the children's reaction to it. I would definitely do it again.

Friday, 8 November 2013

This week was very emotional for me. It was tough, sad and at times overwhelming. And progress was very slow. But I was glad about the task ahead of me and grateful and I have to admit, it made me feel special. Special, because this lovely family put their trust and faith in me to create something truly special for them. Last year, I had a lovely lady ordering three dolls of me. When I changed my business name, she followed me to my new page and sent me a lovely message at the start of September: "Before my husband & I had our 3 children pictured in my profile picture we very sadly had another little boy who passed away - every year we buy a new Christmas decoration for him for our tree but this year I had a thought if you could make a boy doll with angel wings to sit at the top of our tree?"I was very touched by this request and of course agreed. The result of four days work is this:

This task was extra difficult for me as I have my own experience with Christmas and death. What I am about to tell you, is very personal, but I feel like sharing it. There once was a man in my life, who meant the world to me. His name was Marcel and he was my father. Sadly I didn't have him in my life for very long. When I was only 12, life became overwhelming for him and he no longer could bare the thought of living. So in the night from Christmas Day to Boxing Day, he took a rope and with that rope his own life. What was left was a horrible, deep and very dark hole that took many years to get a little brighter. When I was a child, I imagined that he was my special angel, my guardian angel, who watched over me and protected me. And many times in my life I felt protected, so maybe it is true. Christmas has been a tough time for me ever since. Every year I do feel pain but this pain is getting easier to deal with. Now, I can enjoy Christmas again and thanks to my girls I even feel excitement. This little angel is called Jake. He was only little and should not have left this world yet. I really wanted to give him a very special set of wings that will carry him forever and can wrap around him when he is in need of a hug.

And all i want to say in the end is this:Rest in peace little angel and may the big angels be at your side forever.

Friday, 14 June 2013

Today two years ago, I started my own little business. That time it was called Lena Design and at first I tried myself in some crocheting and a bit of jewellery making but it didn't really satisfy me enough.

This is a crochet pouch I made for my cousin and below is a granny square blanket I made for Lucy.

But I yet had to find my real vocation. This happened luckily really soon, after I started.

I wanted to make a present for my friend's little girl. She was getting a little baby sister at the time and I wanted her to get something special, too. So I searched and searched for the perfect present ad finally came across the Clothkits dolls. I ordered one and started to make it. They are pretty simple as everything is printed onto one piece of fabric and you just cut out. I quite enjoyed making it and loved to have that finished doll afterwards. I think in that moment my love for doll making was born.

But obviously I couldn't and didn't want to sell dolls like this. I knew they needed to be more individual and so I searched again for the right pattern. I fell in love instantly with the fox pattern of 'Bit of Whimsy Dolls'.

This fox is the first doll/softie I ever sold. Many followed and I loved making more.

I don't mind that it is sometimes tough. The CE marking was my lowest point I think, but I worked myself through that and got to the other side. That was a very proud moment in my doll making career.

There are always ups and downs in business and it will never be an easy ride. I think as long as you make yourself aware of that it won't get to you as much when you have a down time in your business. I watched my husband grow a flower business from scratch. It was tough the first four or five years and then it started to get easier. He goes through a lot of downs but also many ups. Watching him, helping him and listening to his advice and stories, made me more confident in my own business. It made me less naive as I realised that no business takes of over night and that it is hard work all the time.

I love being able to stay at home, while working as well. It is only a small business but I have big plans for the future. If they will work out or not, we will see. If you follow my journey, you will get to see it, too. But I will certainly never give up.

I value and appreciate each and every customer and am eternally grateful that you make it possible for me to follow my dream and do what I love.

P.S: Due to the time and effort the ce marking takes, I no longer make that fox.

Wednesday, 5 June 2013

So, I made two more crazy haired dolls :) These two are super heros, with capes and masks.

Stripy Sandor is a super boy, who dresses in stripes, stripes and did I mention...stripes? Even his hair is stripy!

Sandor is Hungarian and means "Helper and Defender of Mankind". I thought that was a very suitable name, especially as I wanted one to start with the letter "s", like stripy. At first I was thinking of Stripy Sam, but there was just no meaning behind that name.

Stripy Sandor's Super outfit in blue with lime green stripes. The back is the same stripy fabric as his top.

Where there is a super boy, there also has to be a super girl. I think with the super hero theme, girls are often left out. But I think girls enjoy hero play just as much as boys. Even my oldest daughter Lucy, who is very girly and loves her princesses and fairies, has begged me for a super girl for a long time now. If I only had the time to make them all the dolls in the world.

Anyway, when I was thinking up my two super dolls, I knew I wanted to make one for boys and one for girls. I have made a girl doll with stripy hair before, so it had to be dots this time. Originally her name was gonna be "Spotty Sue" and that name was floating around in my head for a long time, but today, when editing the pictures, it struck me that it makes her sound like some wallflower with a spotty face haha. But of course they are polka dots, so her name was changed to Dotty instead of Spotty, which meant I needed a new name beginning with the letter "d". So, after a bit of research, I settled on Devon, which means "Defender", again a very suitable name for a super girl.

Dotty Devon wears all things polka dot and again, her hair sports the same theme. In fact, it has 26 individually sewn on raspberry pink polka dots. That took quite some time. I love the colours of her outfit. I always liked the combination of pink and green. She looks very cheerful and happy to me.

Dotty devon's super outfit, in lime green with a large pink polka dot on the cape and a machine stitched on flash.

I enjoyed making these two a lot, though they did tale quite some time with all the detail of the hair and the outfits. Also, with this kind of hair, the head gets so thick, that it is rather difficult to turn the dolls and took me up to 30 minutes each but I think it was well worth it.